Revolution is a church started by Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker's son Jay. My old neighbors had a Revolution bumper sticker that said, "Religion Kills." I thought they were the typical anti-Christian lefties that we get here in Burlington, VT, but the point is actually that religion kills the message of Christ. In other words, people get lost in the legalism, etc. I'm not endorsing Revolution, just telling you what it is. Here's their website.

Legalists do need to apologise to everyone, whether they are masquerading as Christians, Muslims, or one of the many Cults on Crack's list. The Spirit of Holiness guiding true Christians teaches them humility, while all the legalism on earth is based upon self righteous pride and displayed for prescious bragging rights.

Don't know if it's connected at all, but this reminds me of the Christians Confess website that got attention (in specific circles) a couple years ago, and appears to be still going strong.

My impression of the site, and these stickers, is that's it's not about sucking up or being pc or whatever, it's a confession that Christians have not, in fact, been particularly Christian in their approaches or attitudes. The Church, for a long, long time was about power and control for far too many people and not about living as Jesus called us to live.

So, there's a move to admit the errors and attempt to move to a renewed spirituality. They can't let go of the baggage of the past, but such folks don't want to embrace it anymore. And, honestly, they want to evangelize in a way that better reflects the good news that Jesus' holistic ministry (life, work, teaching, cross, resurrection) expressed.

Paddy O wrote: " it's a confession that Christians have not, in fact, been particularly Christian in their approaches or attitudes. The Church, for a long, long time was about power and control for far too many people and not about living as Jesus called us to live."

Traditionalguy, that's exactly it. And your mention of the Spirit of Holiness is spot on. Holiness is far too often assumed as equivalent to legalism or moralism or self-righteousness. But that's a bad understanding, and people who think their holy because of legalism might very well be quite unholy.

And that's what this push is about, from what I can see. It's about trying to retune to be more in tune with the holy as represented by Jesus, and as continued by the Spirit who is holy.

By being legalists and power hungry, Christians have in a lot of ways denied their own Christ.

A couple of weeks ago I preached (well, presented an abridgment of a much longer paper) to a church in Oregon on a more accurate understanding of holiness. It was based on the work of Wolfhart Pannenberg--though as such it also pays close attention to what Scripture actually says.

Trey, me too. Keeping this stuff in mind has radically shaped my online conversation. Made me a lot more quiet than I used to be, but I think that's not as much permanent as a temporary step.

Legalists do need to apologise to everyone, whether they are masquerading as Christians, Muslims, or one of the many Cults on Crack's list. The Spirit of Holiness guiding true Christians teaches them humility, while all the legalism on earth is based upon self righteous pride and displayed for prescious bragging rights.

This is why, even as a believer myself, I've never been comfortable with anything other than traditional Lutheranism.

I love that old SNL sketch where the guy is talking to his guardian angel, who knows absolutely everything in the universe. Things like the 348th grossest thing in the world and, at the very end of the sketch, God's favorite religion...Lutheran lol

That said, it has long been my personal experience that sincere individuals apologize mostly because they want to be liked.

This is why every day, in various ways, I apologize for my very existence.

Please forgive me.

(2) FWIW, I can understand why someone would apologize for something they did. I can understand why someone would apologize for something their child did. I can understand why someone would apologize for something a spouse or sibling or friend did. Maybe even a business associate.

I cannot understand why anyone would be so grandiose as to think that he or she has standing to apologize for a total stranger, no less millions of strangers, no less an abstraction like a country or a nation or a religion.

Seems insincere to me.

A public relations tactic and little else.

So says I, a knee-jerk splitter, not a joiner.

(The sentence immediately above is best read in a pirate voice. Yaaargh!!!)

One of the teachers of the law came and heard them debating. Noticing that Jesus had given them a good answer, he asked him, "Of all the commandments, which is the most important?" "The most important one," answered Jesus, "is this: 'Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.' The second is this: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' There is no commandment greater than these."

"Well said, teacher," the man replied. "You are right in saying that God is one and there is no other but him. To love him with all your heart, with all your understanding and with all your strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself is more important than all burnt offerings and sacrifices."

When Jesus saw that he had answered wisely, he said to him, "You are not far from the kingdom of God." And from then on no one dared ask him any more questions. [Mark 12:28-34 NIV]

This is what Christianity is all about. Why would any Christian feel a need to apologize for believing this?

Lars porsena...The scripture instructs us to humble ourselves, so that humiliation will not become necessary. One traditional method is the Jewish Yom Kippur tradition of humbling their soul by fasting and and repentance prayers. The secret is that amazing grace teaches us deep in our hearts, while listings of rules that we claim we can keep only pushes us into more sins. Another good way is to withdraw ourselves from our own opinion and let others have a chance to be right. That also frees you from the burden of having to be right all the time. Shalom to you.

I used to read Newsweek and the local paper (haha, I know) and always skipped any letter to the editor or opinion piece that began with the phrase "As a [mother/white man/conservative/union member/veteren/doctor/etc]." I think that if you've got a point to make it ought to be strong enough that it doesn't require an argument from authority.

I’m sorry for being so interested in that 19th century American idiot/genius-charlatan Joseph Smith, who said:

"While one portion of the human race is judging and condemning the other without mercy, the Great Parent of the universe looks upon the whole human family with a fatherly care and paternal regard; He views them as His offspring. . . .

"He is a wise Lawgiver, and will judge all men, not according to the narrow, contracted notions of men, but, ‘according to the deeds done in the body whether they be good or evil,' or whether these deeds were done in England, America, Spain, Turkey, or India. . . "

Paddy O wrote: " it's a confession that Christians have not, in fact, been particularly Christian in their approaches or attitudes.

Isn’t that the truth. People are people, and as such are prone to the same jerky things everyone else is prone to. But with some folks, it comes with this extra dose of self-righteousness that is not desirable. It’s part of why I can’t seem to settle in a church, because I’ve seen too much of the church leadership bs in a success of churches/church schools throughout childhood. You know when you see all those high school is horrible movies? The closest I ever came to any of that treatment was when I made the mistake of spending 7th grade in a “Christian” school where the guys who spent the entire year being a total jerk ended up winning the “Christian conduct award” at which I point I said forget this nonsense and went to a public school where people acted a hell of a lot more Christian than they did at the private school.

This is what Christianity is all about. Why would any Christian feel a need to apologize for believing this?

ITA, that Jesus was all about loving your neighbor, and being nice to the people who everyone else is mean to, but not all Christians live up to this. If you want to apologize for you imperfect self, have at it. All have sinned and come short of the glory of god and all that. However, it is asinine and obnoxious to apologize for people who are not you. Shut up, graffiti people!

traditionalguy and PaddyO, that's what separates Judeo-Christian philosophy from that of our self-appointed enemies. We can look at ourselves and see we need improvement, admit that we've done things wrong and need to change. There wouldn't have been an end to slavery and Jim Crow but for these facts.

Our adversaries, however, are on a mission from the almighty and have no such capacity. And if recognizing that means I'm a self-righteous, judgmental bastard, so be it. I want to live and I want my civilization to survive.

Richard Fagin...I agree with you. The Christian insight that our enemies are not flesh and blood (persons with bodies)helps direct the Christian not to attack others and be at peace with everyone, insofar as it lies within our power. But let anyone attack or intimidate my friends and then a fight becomes a necessity, and friends become a necessity in that fight, and Semper Fidelis suddenly becomes a lot more than an empty slogan. I suspect that is why I will accept a Sarah Palin's style of leadership over the more intellectual politicians, or more intellectual expositors, such as a Peggy Noonan. In a fight being intellectually correct is not the goal. The only goal is to win and end the fight.

I haven't noticed Christians being any more self-righteous, judgmental, or bastardly, than anyone else. Such faults are found across all of humanity.

Sure. But depending on where you are, the people who are most arrogantly self-righteous, judgmental or bastardly may tend to be Christians, just the way, if you're in San Francisco, they'll all be conventionally bien-pensant Leftists.

I still recall, five or six years on, this snotty goatee-ed receptionist for a building I was at for an interview, whose idea of small talk was to crack offensive jokes about Bush II. I suspect that, as Californians often do, he assumed that because I'm non-White, I therefore shared his opinions of Bush II. I did not correct him, because that would have been rude, so instead I huff about him like this, behind his back. In Evangelical communities, I'm sure, there must be people just as smugly certain that everyone around them thinks the same things they do.

Anyhow, the people that get one's goat are not the people who live far away where one will never meet them. There are people, I suppose, who get the hives just imagining that that someone, somewhere is being self-righteous, but most of us are irritated only by the self-righteous chap next door.

when posting here, you really should consider changing your actual handle to "the other jeremy." More than once I've almost skipped one of your comments because I assume it's written by you-know-who. Just a thought.